1. ORIGINALLY, the Lego company used to sell wooden toys. It was founded in 1932 by Danish carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen, who started making toys out of leftover wood.

2. One of the first he made was a wooden duck for his children. They loved it so much it inspired him to put it into production.

3. The name Lego comes from the Danish words “leg godt”, or “play well”.

4. Later the Lego Group discovered that “Lego” can be loosely interpreted as “I put together” or “I assemble” in Latin.

5. Ole’s son Godtfred took over as the firm’s managing director in 1957 and ran it when his father died the following year. He had the idea for a type of interlocking plastic toy brick, to inspire creativity in children.

16. Many Lego workers protested when the firm began making Star Wars sets in 1999, feeling the theme went against its pacifist ideal.

17. Those Star Wars sets were a major factor in reversing the company’s decline.

18. One of the rarest mini figures is Boba Fett from the Star Wars Cloud City set. An original changes hands for around £275.

19. The most expensive mini figure ever is a 14-carat gold C-3PO, of which five were made as contest prizes to mark Star Wars’ 30th anniversary. None has been sold since, but some estimate each would fetch £10,000.

AGELESS CLASSIC

MY Lego love affair began with a cable car ride in the Alps.

On returning home, my dad and I built a working Lego replica between the first-floor toilet window and the back garden.

Father and son bonded over a mountain of bricks, wheels and cogs – then fell out when it crashed into the drain three days later, whereupon he spent his pub time fishing those little plastic bricks out of a sea of tea leaves and dirty dishwater.

Weeks later, my best mate and I built a miniature version of the town of Hitchin, Herts, where I grew up – complete with kebab shop, boozers, a gym and a busy police station.

A generation later and it’s the same in my household, with its dedicated Lego table and endless bags and storage boxes for the stuff.

There’s no cable car yet but I’ve built football stadiums, battleships, castles and mini cities with my kids. The football stadium was taken over by an army of knights during the World Cup. Donald Trump landed in Air Force One at the airport and was kidnapped by aliens who arrived by train.

In this age of social media and games consoles, I’m amazed that Lego can still absorb my kids for hours.

But then I’d argue that Lego has never been better – who wouldn’t want to build the Nou Camp with Chewbacca screaming from the dugout, Batman and the Joker fighting on the terraces and a ninja army arriving by fire-fighting plane to stage the half-time entertainment?